Slacker! (s)

So we were recently introduced to internet radio. What a sweet idea. Choose what songs you want to hear. Ban those you don't. We are using slacker and pandora, and enjoy both. The a capella station on pandora is tight, and the 80's station on slacker is badical radical.






Speaking of slackers, Susanna is struggling to grasp the idea of being behind the handlebars, instead of in front.

Gifts for the Child Who Has Everything

What to get Susanna for her first birthday?

She has more clothes than we know what to do with.

She has all the types of toys children her age enjoy.

She has siblings to beat up on.

She already gets the food she likes to eat.

Savings account? Check.

What does she lack? Parents who have expensive dates!

So for Susanna's birthday, she got a babysitter. While we went to P.F. Chang's.

We know. That's horrible. But since we'll be those paying for the therapy, she can deal with it.

Oh, but least you think we are completely horrid, she is getting a Care Bear cake.

Measuring Up

Our children have not quite grasped the concept of measurement. It is fun to record some of the various confusions of time, distance, weight, and volume.

"It took me fifteen miles to finish my frosted flakes."

"I think we only have two cups left in the movie."

"We need two more minutes of muffin mix, I'll get another box."

"It will take me about an inch to finish this."

Payback

A couple of years ago, Ami would find great joy in waking up siblings who were sleeping near the edge of a bed or a couch by pushing them off the edge.

What goes around...



Susanna could not resist the temptation of grabbing her by the pants and pulling.

It's called a "kick" in the movie "Inception", and it definitely works for waking someone up, although it is not always the fall causing the rude awakening, as much as the hard floor.

Susanna is stronger than we thought.

And she laughed and laughed.

It's all in the name.

Is there any question parents get ask more than "Why?"

The only one that I think comes close is "What's for dinner?"

At the end of a long day, we decided the college stand-by noodles in a bag was all we had energy for.

"What's for dinner?"

"Secret ingredient noodle soup."

"LIKE FROM KUNG-FU PANDA!?!?!?!?!... AWESOME!... (Later) This is the best secret ingredient soup ever!"

Whoever pays the big bucks for good advertising has known something I just learned. It's all in how you package it.

Want a better Christmas Gift?

This post ignores completely what Christmas is all about and is petty and worldly.

Soooooo...

I got some really good gifts for Christmas. Shirts, a tie, some books, a cd... a lamp (yes, my wife got me a lamp. I got her 5 pairs of pants, two shirts, a skirt, a jacket, and I got a lamp and a cd from her... probably how it should be.)

Then I "accidentally" left my phone in my jeans.

Family policy is that the person who puts it into the wash checks pockets, but we will ignore that and I'll take the blame anyway.

After the final rinse cycle: Voila! No working phone. It's like magic.

(We did the whole dry it in rice thing, but Samsung intensity puts a lock on the phone to prevent warranty abuse where if a part of the phone gets wet, it locks you out. And they want to make money on us, for which they will account for in the afterlife...)

Sooooo, for after-Christmas I got a new phone! The Fascinate - hello Droid, my little friend. It tells me where to go (Lola a la "RV"), checks my email, finds restaurants, weather, texts, and movie times, tells me when the Cougs and Manchester United are winning so I can celebrate, transfers all of my 500 contacts as notes instead of phone numbers (what the !?!?), deletes emails from my gmail contacts at random (what do you mean "contact not found" I'm looking at it right here!), simplifies my life (after 13 hours of reentering all the information properly), scans my groceries and keeps a list, takes my temperature, lets me know if I have cancer, etc.

With phonezoo I can upload all the ringtones I want and assign them to my family and friends. Yea! Guess who got "Bella's theme" Thayne? Anyone wanna guess who got "Unicorns I Love them?"



We were asked to simplify our lives this year. Fortunately I got this done before the new year.

And then they double charged me and sent me a second phone in the mail. (Return to sender!)

I don't think I'll wash a phone again.

Caught...

...helping with the laundry.



What a great helper, removing wet towels from the drier.



When we're helping we're happy! And so is Mom.

Christmas Ninjas!

We made Gingerbread cookies for about eight hours on Saturday, some of the fun was making gingerbread ninjas.

At least they were fun until people mistook them for sleeping people, three-legged dogs, aardvarks, and body casts.



Oh well, they are confusing from some angles.



Ami practices her ninja skills by attacking the head first.



Melissa goes buck-wild with the cutter.



Tim gets out of "time-out" for the fortieth* time during the process. "We are not having a food fight just because we are making ninjas."



You might have grown up on 8-bit Nintendo if you just thought "double dragon" upon seeing those two.


Happy Holidays to all of our family and friends. Thank you for reading the blog and keeping up with what is going on in our lives.

*under-estimate.